


Expletive

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 09:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14829806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: She wears her scrubs tight and her hair long and she doesn’t give a good goddamn anymore.





	Expletive

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: S11  
> Author's Notes: One of those fics you come up with in the shower. Now "It's 2018. Go fuck yourself" is a constant refrain in my house.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

She swears more lately. She used to save the expletives for weighty moments when she needed to make an impact. Now she salts her conversation with curse words and PG-13 vulgarity. She talks dirtier than she used to too. Mulder responds very positively. It’s probably the years of dating his right hand. 

Maybe she’s pushing his limits. Mulder has always been boundless. Still, a lot of things are settling with age. The house has been a chrysalis around him; she has to make sure he remembers the horizon. Or maybe it’s her turn to be the shocking one. Maybe it’s her version of wearing purple with a red hat that doesn’t match and doesn’t suit her. Is she old enough to be a Red Hat? She doesn’t remember. She feels ancient and ageless. Her sister is gone. Her mother is gone. Her children are gone. She stands in the sun and lets the wind weather her. Monuments only mark the way when they’re seen. 

She barely recognizes the photographs of the year they met. She was such a buttoned-up little thing. “Dammit, Mulder” must have been startling coming from her mouth. Too bad she didn’t have a tailor then. Those boxy shoulder pads could have been imposing. Instead she bore up under them, letting them carve a space in the world for her. It had been all broad shoulders when she had begun, men she looked up to but didn’t admire. She disguised herself in oversized jackets, trying to look bigger. The Bureau functioned according to the law of the bureaucratic jungle, and all she had for claws were a scalpel and a vocabulary full of esoteric jargon. 

What was she afraid of? What kept her so prim, all hospital corners, ship shape and Bristol fashion? All those years of their chiaroscuro life, the shadows deep and plentiful and the light in thin vivid slivers: it all felt so apocalyptic. She’s happier talking about alien butt muffins and leprechaun taints. She wears her scrubs tight and her hair long and she doesn’t give a good goddamn anymore. She’d kiss Mulder in the middle of the Mall if she felt like it and flip off Big Brother. It’s 2018. Go fuck yourself.

She has lost everything but him, and she’s happy, or some approximation thereof. They hit some barrier built of grief and loss and frustration and slammed through it. She thinks of Chuck Yeager ripping across the sky, or the test pilots in Idaho: they distorted the space around them, and she no longer believes in perfect elasticity. They haven’t returned to the same shape, and she’s still waiting for the sonic boom to leave their ears ringing, but she won’t put their lives on hold any longer. 

Out of the shadows and into the light. Resist. Dana Scully doesn’t take shit now; she talks it, and she doesn’t get hit. 

Mulder’s talking to her and she just looks at him and raises an eyebrow and he sputters to a stop. 

“You want to get out of here?” she says at three-quarter speed. She can see the drawl working through his brain, sparking one connection after the other until his eyes light up.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said.

She let the door slam behind them.


End file.
